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Title: A Love So Dark

Series: Fatal Fidelity, Book Four

Author: Rien Gray

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 06/06/2023

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: F/NB

Length: 49900

Genre: Contemporary, contemporary, romance/ noir, suspense, nonbinary, queer, bisexual, interracial, established couple, assassin, artist, Mafia, imprisonment, courtroom drama, FBI agents, revenge, graphic violence, #ownvoices

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The visceral conclusion to the Fatal Fidelity series.

After Justine and Campbell’s beachside vacation is interrupted by the FBI, Campbell is arrested for murder and arson. The evidence leaves them in an impossible position: either take the fall for an assassination they didn’t commit or confess to a killing they already got away with.

When an aggressive federal agent starts uncovering Campbell’s secrets, it’s only a matter of time before the other bodies they’ve buried come back to the surface. With Campbell behind bars, Justine can’t prove their innocence, but she can take matters into her own hands.

She just has to commit the perfect crime—before they both lose everything.

Warning: Sexual content and language

A Love So Dark
Rien Gray © 2023
All Rights Reserved

Justine

I’m on a beach fifty-two hundred miles away from home, and the person I love the most is doing unspeakable things between my legs.

Campbell started much lower, massaging every last ounce of tension out of my calves, a kiss placed on each unraveled knot. They’re too damn patient, spending as much time offering worship to the hollow where calf meets knee as they do running the hot length of their tongue up a quivering cord of need along the inside of my thigh. From above, the view is perfect—broad planes of muscle moving through their back like a beautiful puzzle, interlocking pieces I’ve memorized with nails and teeth—and there’s a singular pleasure in watching Campbell crawl toward the border of shadow draped across my hips.

We’re out in the open with no cover but an umbrella and a long white towel, although the pitch-black sand around us is mercifully empty. Campbell paid extensively for our solitude; privacy comes at a premium in Viña del Mar. I’ve never been comfortable with the thought of strangers waiting on me hand and foot, but a very distant lifeguard who promised to look the other way? Turns out to be the unexpected key to indulgence.

Teeth scrape over the string of my bikini, clinging to the swell of my hip, and I shudder. “You’re torturing me.”

“Am I?” Gray eyes flicker upward, burgeoning with desire intense as the tide. “Torture usually makes you scream.”

I bite off oh god on my tongue when Campbell finally strips me bare, dragging my bottoms down and out of the way. Not that the swimsuit was covering much to begin with. For the first time in my life, I dressed for the vacation of my dreams, with a wardrobe designed to distract my notoriously focused assassin from everything but touching me. A flawless execution thus far; we’ve shared an animal mood since touching down at Santiago International, cycling between eating and fucking until exhaustion forces us to sleep.

After this morning, I should be sore, yet the memory of Campbell handcuffing me to our hotel bed and taking me from behind sends a renewed pulse of heat to my clit. Hiding my arousal is impossible when they part me with their fingers and trace a slick, clear line down to the entrance of my pussy. Logically, I know no one can see us, but the idea that someone might be watching as I arch my back and moan ignites another intense frisson of heat through my body, echoed again when Campbell wraps their lips around me and sucks.

Keeping my hands still is a pointless exercise. I find a hold in the back of chestnut hair, running my thumb across the dark velvet of Campbell’s freshly buzzed nape. They muffle a groan against oversensitive skin, and I gasp, tightening my grip. Their tongue darts inside me just long enough to earn a whimper, but Campbell’s mouth is everywhere: spreading me open, kissing swollen folds, painting circles over my clit. Hungry, starved, a beast I’ve leashed around the heart and refuse to let go of.

Rolling my hips into the constant friction only makes the feeling sharper, bliss spiking across my nerves as a brutal electric spark. Whenever I catch a glimpse of Campbell’s gaze, their eyes burn through me, seared black with need. My entire world collapses to salt and heat—sweat and the ocean colliding with noonday sun, and the fire Campbell continues to stoke, low and visceral. The next time I clench, two of their fingers push into me, curling deep enough to force a cry from the bottom of my throat.

“Fuck, Campbell—” I almost choke on their name, riding that tight, trembling spiral on the edge of release. So close I can taste it, but held out of reach. “Please, make me—”

Our games fall away with their next rough thrust. Ecstasy eclipses my vision, bursts of chiaroscuro behind every staggered heartbeat. Campbell moves without remorse, drawing out my orgasm until I can’t do anything but breathe and sob, the pressure from within and without meeting at a white-hot point deep inside me. My nails bite into the back of their neck, a brand of warning, and the seal of their mouth breaks with a truly obscene sound.

I shiver in the aftermath, coming back to myself. Campbell rises from between my knees to claim a kiss, messy but sweet, sweat rising off their skin. Telling them to lay still and get doused in sunscreen earlier was fun, especially when I had to make sure it got everywhere—wouldn’t want them to burn, after all.

They’re comfortable enough to be out here shirtless, which is new. Another bonus of our pure isolation is Campbell wearing nothing but a sinfully tight pair of swim shorts with subtle triangle cuts around the thighs, fabric straining with every flex of muscle. I take advantage of our position to give their ass a firm grope, which startles a low laugh from their lips, faint but genuine.

“Ready to go again?” Campbell asks.

Despite the temptation to tease, I need a breather. “No. I’m just appreciating the view.”

For once, they’re the only thing I have to think about. Two months ago, I sold my ownership stake in the art gallery to Dalia at a friendly discount. She and her ex-girlfriend—now wife—plan to split the space between displaying art and an experimental photography studio so Nia can establish her career stateside. After years long spent building her portfolio across Europe and Asia, she agreed with Dalia to settle down, and I signed the contract for the happy couple with a smile.

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NineStar Press | Books2Read

Rien Gray is a queer, nonbinary writer who has worked in ghostwriting, TTRPGS, and video games. They have a treasured (and ever-growing) collection of LGBTQ+ history books as well as a deep, abiding love for Greek myth. Rien has an upcoming short story in Neon Hemlock’s Baffling Magazine. They live in Ireland.